Chapter Nine: The Case of the Ingenious A

Table of Contents 

 Chapter Nine: The Case of the Ingenious A

116. Law's 1800 house became the fulcrum of the New Varnum Hotel

In an 1888 magazine article about the Octagon, restoration architect Glenn Brown accepted the family legend that Thornton was its designer. Brown also proposed the Octagon as the headquarters of the American Institute of Architects, which was then in Manhattan. To build support for his proposal, in 1896, he wrote an article that dispelled doubts cast on the supremacy of Thornton's Capitol design. Brown also credited him for designing and superintending construction of other houses including two houses that the General had built to board congressmen. Work on the Octagon and the General's houses began in 1799. That same year, work began on Thomas Law's five story brick house just south of the Capitol. It had oval rooms like the Octagon and stood for over a century first as a boarding house, then a private residence and finally as a hotel. It has since been sacrificed for the Longworth House Office Building. It was still standing when Brown wrote his article, but he didn’t credit Thornton for its design.(1)

In 1901, a lawyer named Allen Clark wrote a dual biography of Greenleaf and Law, but didn't mention who designed Law's house. However, Clark introduced the name of William Lovering into the conversation about who designed old houses still standing. He credited Lovering for building Greenleaf's houses and designing The Maples. W. B. Bryan's 1914 authoritative history of the "national capital" cited Mrs. Thornton's just published 1800 diary and sang Thornton praises: "...her husband being engaged in preparing detailed plans of the work to be done at the capitol, as well as other architectural work he was engaged in at the time, as, for example, making the plans and superintending the building of the Octagon House...." But Bryan, a local "newspaper man," also dug into the commissioners' records and found an order to lay out a building lot for Lovering at the intersection of New Jersey Avenue and C Streets SE. He noted that "If Mr. Lovering was the principal in this enterprise, and not merely the architect, he did not carry it out, as a house was built there in the latter part of 1799 by Thomas Law...." Bryan also cited Clark's research and described Lovering as combining "what was quite common then and for many years later the business of builder with the profession of architect."(2) That doesn't quite describe what Lovering combined. He could also superintend the construction of several houses, each for a different client, at the same time. He commonly agreed to visit each project at least twice a week.

Division Sheet for Square 689

In his 1989 book on the Octagon, Ridout  identified Lovering, not Thornton, as superintending architect at the Octagon. That raised the possibility that builder/architect Lovering designed the Octagon, as well as Law's house. That makes sense since both the Octagon and Law's house face an intersection with an acute angle. But Ridout had no doubt that Thornton designed the Octagon. Then, in his 1995 discussion of Thornton as a residential architect, C. M. Harris, the editor of Thornton’s published papers, dismissed designs credited to Lovering as "conventional and unadventurous." The design of Law’s house was unconventional. Harris credited Thornton as its designer because it had a “curvilinear element” that Thornton perfected when he designed the Octagon.(3)

Although undated and not widely known, the contract for building the house signed by Law and Lovering is extant. Archivists mislabeled the eleven page document as being written "circa 1794," so it escaped the scrutiny of researchers interested in what Law was planning to build in 1798. The document begins "Particular description and manner of building a house for Thomas Law Esq. fronting the side of New Jersey Avenue and South C Street on Square 689 for $5800 as per drawings marked A.B.C.D.... " The document then specifies building materials, dimensions, and the use of latches, sashes, etc. The "elliptical rooms" are mentioned but not described save for their height, 12 feet and 10 feet respectively, and that their walls were to be framed by wood scantling. Unfortunately, drawings A.B.C.D. have not been found. The contract does not explicitly say that Lovering drew the designs.(4)

The house floor plans with oval rooms in Thornton's papers don’t resemble it. Nor is there any reason to assume that Thornton’s yet to be built oval chambers in the Capitol inspired Law. Hoban’s oval rooms in the President’s house had already been built. Oval rooms in houses became fashionable in late 18th century Britain and France. New country seats had them. In 1786, while on a prolonged stay in England, William Hamilton sent instructions on how to build Woodlands, then outside Philadelphia but now in that city's Fairmount Park. His mansion has two notable oval rooms, a parlor and dining room. Another mansion now in the park, Lemon Hill, which was built in 1800, also has oval rooms. An architectural historian notes "its use of ovals and circular spaces suggests a French influence." However, putting oval rooms in a confined townhouse, as opposed to a rambling country house or a monumental building like the Capitol or President's house, would be more challenging.(5) 

 

The only sketch of Law's floor plan is in a letter Benjamin Latrobe wrote to the gentleman who bought the house from Law in 1815. The buyer wanted to upgrade the heating system. Latrobe suggested "a handsome grate" for the principal oval room, an oval marked "B" in his sketch. The ballroom in Latrobe's sketch was in the next door house that Law financed but another man contracted to have built. Through that arrangement, a judge would give Law credit toward fulfilling his requirement to build 166 houses.(6)

 

In a letter to Greenleaf, Law delighted in describing his house: “on the ground floor there is a handsome oval room 32 by 24 and a room adjoining 20 by 28 - the oval room is so handsomely furnished that I wish to leave the eagle round glasses, carpet and couches in them as they are suited to the room - above stairs is a dressing room and a bedroom 21 by 20 - a center room with a fireplace about 17 by thirteen, an oval room 30 by 25 - and a room 20 by 11 with a fireplace - the same upstairs - say 8 bed rooms or 7 bedrooms and an oval sitting room…." One entrance and stairway on New Jersey Avenue, marked A in Latrobe's sketch, granted access to each floor. Law was so excited by fan shaped kitchen below the oval that he sketched it in his letter.(7) 

 

In deciding whether Thornton or Lovering designed Law's largest oval room dimensions are important. By 1798, Thornton was able to share his floor plan of the Capitol with Law and point to his grand oval vestibule "about 114 feet in diameter" that might be built in the years ahead. In 1794, Lovering squeezed a 32 foot long room into one of Greenleaf's townhouse. Mr. Henry, Greenleaf’s “secretaire economic,” was so impressed that he thought the townhouse should be a hotel. Law's largest room was 32 feet long. When he began advertising his services, Lovering added something that Law might have noticed: "(From London)." While Law made his money in India, his brother was London's most prominent lawyer. Was Lovering trying to remind Law that he could cater to the upper classes? While not designed by Lovering, the first house in the city that the Laws lived in, the so-called Honeymoon House at the west end of N Street SW, was finished by Lovering.(8)

Meanwhile, by early 1798, Thornton and Law had become close friends and both were full of ideas that they felt compelled to share. Law's initial dealings with Thornton had been unpleasant. As a board member, he voted not to give Law deeds unconditionally. In 1795, when Law needed an architect, he hired Hallet. Law had cultivated Hadfield to keep track of work at the Capitol. In 1796, he was enraged that Thornton spread a rumor that the General wanted his private residence in the city on Peter's Hill near Georgetown. In 1797, Law faulted Thornton for not moving to Capitol Hill. At the end of that year, he accused Scott and Thornton of not removing their office to Capitol to placate a developer who promised to build two three story houses if they did. Then after meeting President Adams in Philadelphia, Law realized that President Adams had no interest in the city. Law could no longer go over the heads of the commissioners. He needed a friend on the board and Thornton was the most congenial and accessible.(9) 

Thornton coveted a friendship with Law because thanks to his marriage he was part of the General's family with easy entree to Mount Vernon. Mrs. Law was two years younger than Mrs. Thornton. In the spring of 1798, Mrs. Thornton occasionally jotted down dates of their shining moments. In May, the Thorntons dined with the Washingtons at the Laws in their so-called second house on New Jersey Avenue which preceded the next and largest third house. On the weekend of June 24, 1798, the Thorntons had tea at the Laws.(10) That was the same weekend Thornton drafted his letter to Pickering. Gentlemen generally didn't talk over business matters at tea, but there is a phrase in the letter that suggests that Law did show Thornton the design Lovering drew for his new house. Apropos Hadfield and the Executive offices, Thornton wrote that "the board applied to Mr. Lovering to calculate the expense of erecting such a building." After "Mr. Lovering," he wrote and then crossed out "an ingenious A." Evidently, the rhetorician realized that the secretary of state might misinterpret that aside as a complement relating to Lovering's plain Executive office design. 

That design has not struck anyone as ingenious. Architectural historian Pamela Scott rues that instead of ''Hadfield’s sophisticated, up-to-date neoclassical building," the city got "a traditional, rather old-fashioned Georgian one." Lovering asked the board to hire him to build his design. But the board put his design out for bids and Lovering's was the third lowest. So he did not show his genius as a building contractor for the commissioners. In January 1798, the commissioners asked him to evaluate sashes offered by carpenters for the Capitol. He found that one needed an extra inch, with another static electricity might be a worry. As for the third, the molding was too thin. His ability to school everyone might make Lovering an ingenious carpenter but not an "ingenious A." That leaves a current project, the design for Law's house, as what likely was on Thornton's mind when he almost complimented Lovering.(11) 

But is there evidence that there was a design when Thornton allegedly saw it on June 24, 1798? According to the commissioners' records, the lot for Law's house was surveyed on September 12. However, on July 10, 1798, Lovering asked the commissioners to apply their payment for his Executive Office design as down payment on lot 12 in Square 691, southwest of the intersection of New Jersey Avenue and C Streets SE. He likely made the request because he knew Law was going to build on the intersection. That suggests that Law had Lovering's design by July 10.(12)

In 1801, another client of Lovering's described how the architect designed and contracted to build houses. The Belgian emigre Henri Joseph Stier broke off negotiations with Benjamin Latrobe for a country mansion in nearby Maryland. Latrobe struck him as “one of those who do not finish their work." He sought out Lovering. In his letter to Greenleaf, Law mentioned that “Steer” was staying in one of his houses. Perhaps Law told Stier about Lovering.

Stier's letters explained how Lovering tried to win a client. Lovering came, Stier wrote to his son, “expressly to show me three different plans, rather ingenious but complicated, and with unattractive facades.... He has proposed to direct my construction with such a plan as I will give him, to attend to the progress and the designs in detail, to come twice each week, and that if I want to hire enough workmen to finish it in twelve months, he will do it for $600....”

In her introduction to a collection of Stier's daughter's letters, Margaret Callcott writes that Lovering "was eager to make himself agreeable to the wealthy Belgium, and all during March [1801] he met regularly with the Stiers and gave them tours around completed houses around Washington." They signed a contract on March 24, 1801, a month after first discussing the project. Architectural historians give Lovering no credit for the design of Riverdale since Stier based the design on his house in Belgium.(13)

127. Stier's Riverdale

Lovering might have started working on Law’s design around June 12, a month before Law asked him to draw up a contract. Of course, that Thornton reacted positively to an ingenious floor plan on June 24  doesn’t necessarily prove that it was Lovering's design. It might have been Law’s idea drawn by Lovering, but it certainly wasn’t Thornton’s idea.

When going over the lot with the surveyor, Lovering decided the house needed another story. As well as facing an angled intersection, Lot 1 in Square 689 had a slope angling down to C Street. It could not be leveled to accommodate the design. Law wrote an addendum to the contract, already 8 pages long, that explained that “Mr. Lovering will have an additional story to make….” The addendum also stipulated that "any alteration in the above plan to be allowed for by either party as may be settled between themselves or arbitrators." It designated Hoban and another builder to “arbitrate on any points of dispute.” There was no mention of Thornton. Evidently, Law liked to arbitrate disputes. In August 1799, Thornton wrote to him primarily about Thornton helping to arbitrate a business dispute unrelated to Law's house. At that time, three months of work had been done on it, but Thornton didn't mention that. He closed the letter with thoughts on their friendship and added: "I often wish to see you, but you will say this is a selfish desire. I own it while you are at so charming a place." Law was at Mount Vernon.(14)

A misunderstanding Lovering had with the commissioners also suggests that Thornton didn't design Law's house. Lovering still had one more payment to make to the board for the lot he bought near Law's houses. He asked the board that future payments for his Executive Office design be used to cover another payment on the lot. The board claimed it had never said it would pay him more than $300. They advised him to take cash and not the lot. On October 4, he handed the board a letter protesting their not paying him more: “I devoted Chearfully my time and Attention to the Offices and have saved you at least 10,000 in particularizing the Building & c. and tho it would be natural for you Gentlemen unacquainted with the trouble of architectural details to under estimate my Services.…” Would he have insulted Thornton if he had been involved in designing Law’s house? The commissioners didn't budge, for Lovering's own good.

At that moment Lovering's reputation was in tatters because he was broke and facing law suits from Nicholson's creditors. Work on Law's house would not begin until April 1799. Out of pity, the commissioners offered to let him relinquish the lot and take $300 in cash that he desperately needed. He refused and reminded them "my situation after long residence in this city and after having superintended the construction of two-thirds of the houses in the city entitles me to your consideration for facilities of every kind, as my Misfortune originates in being over zealous and becoming security for my employers and not in any misconduct of my own."(15) 

He refrained from describing how desperate his situation was, but, he did share his misery with his employer. In letters to Nicholson, he explained that he had been arrested for nonpayment. The judge would not let Lovering post bail because he did not own any property. That's why he needed the commissioners help. The sheriff posted bail for him, which allowed him to dun Lovering for petty cash on demand. The alternative was going to jail. To end the harassment, Lovering decided to seek protection under Maryland's Insolvency Act. If granted, he could work without the money that passed through his hands being attached by creditors, but then creditors could take what property he had. To get protection, he had to advertise his intentions. Doing that, he explained to Nicholson on December, "has been a great injury to me for I should have had several buildings.…" A friend of Nicholson's warned the speculator of the possible loss of “a man of abilities." Nicholson could do nothing but Law kept him in the country.(16)

Meanwhile, there is no evidence that Law alluded to Thornton having anything to do with house. If the doctor had, it’s hard to fathom how he could have kept quiet about it. In November 1799, the General inspected Law’s house, his own houses being built on the other side of Capitol Hill and Tayloe’s house then also under construction. According to Law, he was quite taken with Law's house. Then that evening, Thornton joined the General, Law and other gentlemen at Mount Vernon. A few weeks later, fearing that there was not enough money to finish the President’s House, Commissioners Thornton and White advised the president that if so, there were three houses he could stay in that were better than the rental he had in Philadelphia. In December, in a private letter, White identified the houses as Law’s, Tayloe’s and a mansion Daniel Carroll had just built below Capitol Hill.(17) If Thornton had designed the General’s, Tayloe’s and Law’s house and refused to garnish his fame by mentioning it, then there had not been such a courageous display of circumspection since the Spartan boy stole a fox and hid it under his cloak.

Then to board congressman, Law leased his house to “Conrad and McMunn” and from November 22, 1800, to March 15, 1801, Vice President Jefferson took room and board, and, as president-elect, was allowed a small parlor to receive visitors. Thornton “went to call on” Jefferson at least two times. What Lovering designed and built would not likely elicit any comment, but if Thornton had done what he would be credited for 200 years later, it would have afforded him a unique calling card. Jefferson’s letters don’t mention the building nor associate Thornton with it.

Nor did Mrs. Thornton mention in her 1800 diary that Jefferson was staying in a house that her husband designed. However, Ridout, Harris and others cite her diary to prove that her husband designed Law’s house. She wrote an entry for every day of that year. On January 12, she and her husband visited Law's house along with Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Peter. Harris shies from quoting the diary and merely opines that "Thornton's role... is partially but substantially documented by his wife's diary for 1800." Pamela Scott quotes five words: "It was designed by William Thornton, and was 'a very pleasant roomy house' according to Anna Maria Thornton.” She wrote more about their inspection of the house. They found the house locked. So, they "entered by the kitchen Window and went all over it— It is a very pleasant roomy house but the Oval drawing room is spoiled by the lowness of the Ceiling, and two Niches, which destroy the shape of the Room….” Her only other mention of the house came on February 17: "Mr. Law is fixed in his new house and is quite pleased with it...."(19)

Certainly, that Thornton climbed through the kitchen window to get inside suggests he had some authority, though his friendship with Law and his touring with Mrs. Law's sister might have given him sufficient license to do that. But how does one account for Mrs. Thornton's criticism of the oval drawing room's low ceiling? Her husband likely informed it. In 1797, Thornton had written to Dr. Fothergill about the Capitol's as yet unbuilt grand oval vestibule that was "full of broad prominent lights and broad deep shadows." He originally called the grand oval vestibule “the dome.” Perhaps, when he saw the floor plan for Law’s house, he did not understand that the oval rooms would be 12 and 10 feet high. Fitting oval rooms into a five story townhouse was alien to Thornton's sensibilities.(20) By the way, Tayloe's oval room also had a 12 foot high ceiling.

 

Thornton did draw a design for Law, and the excitement Mrs. Thornton exhibited is striking. On February 27, 1800, she wrote "Dr. T- received a note from Mr. Law enclosing a rough Sketch of a plan for a Stables & c. behind his house which is five stories before and three behind, which Dr. T- had promised to lay down for him as he had suggested the ideas - The Stables and Carriage house are to be built at the bottom of the lot and the whole yard to be covered over at one Story height, and gravelled over, so as to have a flat terrass from the Kitchen story all over the extremity of the lot.... Dr. T- engaged in the evening drawing Mr. Law's plan." That was her only description of a Thornton design. Conrad and McMunn would advertise that they could accommodate 60 horses but evidently no one ever credited Thornton, which was likely fine with a gentleman of his reputation. Also, any inference that the genius who designed the stables behind a house also designed the house is dangerous in this case. There is conclusive documentary evidence that Lovering designed the stables and coach house next to Tayloe’s house. The plans are annotated in Lovering’s hand.(21)

Octagon Stables: writing in Lovering's hand

Ridout suggests that Thornton's design for the Octagon was the catalyst for his life long friendship with Tayloe. Actually blood horses were, but it's a nice conceit. As it turned out, Thornton's friendship with Law did not last long. In March 1801, Thornton wrote to Law and lamented: “For a long time past I imagined that I perceived in your behavior a reserve and distance which forbade that free communication with you that frequently took place from a sincere friendship on my part, which I flattered myself was mutual.” The matter was that Law thought Thornton was favoring the west end of the city. Obviously, Thornton had not designed Law’s premier house in the east end.(22)

The project on the other side of Capitol Hill was another matter. That he had not been asked to design the General’s houses hurt, and for six months, Thornton plotted to save his reputation from the slight. 

Go to Chapter 10

1. see Introduction 

2. Brown, Glenn 1896, "Dr. William Thornton, Architect." Architectural Record, 1896 , Vol. VI, July-September (page 53ff) pdf.; Clark, Allen Greenleaf and Law in the Federal City; W. H. Bryan, History of the National Capitol, vol. 1 pp. 278-9, 311, 315-6 

3. Ridout  Building the Octagon, p. 76; Harris, Papers of William Thornton, p. 588; 

4. Mount Vernon Museum, "Particular description..."   of the house for Thomas Law built on Square 689 

5. Corosino, Catherine Ann, The Woodlands: Documentation of an American Interior, Thesis, U. of Penn, 1997 p. 128; Helpern, Martha, “Henry Pratt’s Account for Lemon Hill,” Antiques and Fine Arts Magazine on-line, Pratt was one of the trustees involved with the Greenleaf’s Point properties and likely knew Lovering ; Smith, Ryan, Robert Morris's Folly: The Architectural and Financial Failures of an American Founder, 2014, pp. 93, 169.

6. Scott, Pamela with Charles Carroll Carter and William DiGiacomantonio, Creating Capitol Hill: Place Proprietors, and Peoples. United States Capitol Historical Society, Washington, D.C., 2018; Pratt v. Law, No. 659, , US Supreme Court, 9 Cranch 456 pp. 779ff

7. Law to Greenleaf, 9 April 1800, Adams Family Papers; 

8. Alexandria Advertiser  9 October 1797, p. 4; Appleton to Henry, 3 & 9 February 1795; Cranch to his father 25 November 1794; Edward Law became Lord Ellenbrough in1802

9. Law to GW 6 October 1796 footnote 7.& 4 February 1797 & 8 February 1797 & 27 December 1797.

10. AMT papers on-line volume one, image 83. 

11. WT to Pickering 23-25 June 1798 draft; Scott, Pamela, "A Communication Between the Offices: Designing the Executive Office Building 1791-1800." White House Historical Association; Lovering to commrs., June 21, 1798; commrs. proceedings June 20, 1798;Lovering to commrs., January 9, 1798, commrs. records.; proceedings 12 January 1798;

12. Lovering to Commissioners, 10 July, Commrs. records.

13. Margaret Law Callcott, editor, Mistress of Riverdale, pp. 28-9;

14.  Op. cit , "Particular description..." ; WT to Law 1 August 1799 Harris pp. 504-5

15.  Lovering to Commrs. 4 October, 1798, Commrs. records.

16. Lovering to Nicholson 4 December 1798; Samuel Ward to Nicholson, August 31, 1798.

17. Law to Greenleaf, 9 April 1800, Adams papers; GW diary 10 November 1799; Commrs to Adams, 21 November 1799; White to Adams 13 December 1799 ( the editors of these on-line papers transcribed "Taylor" but the letter clearly reads "Tayloe;") 

18. Greenleaf and Law, p. 250; Diary pp. 216, 222

19. Mrs. Thornton's Diary p. 94; Scott, Creating Capitol Hill, p. 129; Harris p. 586.

20. WT to Fothergill, 10 October 1797, Harris pp. 424-27; Mount Vernon Museum, "Particular description..." ; 

21. Diary p. 112; National Intelligencer  5 January 1801, "Conrad and McMunn" ad, p. 4

22. WT to Law 9 March 1801, Harris pp. 553-4